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Topic: Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa (Read 28469 times) previous topic - next topic
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Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

I would like to hear about the quality comparison results of the 4 formats mentioned in the subject.


edit: finally corrected the grammar...

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #1 –
I don't know of any comparisons like that with PsyTEL directly in the mix, but ff123 has performed a test with those formats and Liquid AAC instead of PsyTEL (which is regarded as performing slightly better than PsyTEL I believe).

You can find the analysis of the results here:

http://www.ff123.net/dogies/dogies_plots.html

Although a bit OT, from my personal experience (extensive blind listening tests), in relation to quality (and which ff123's test seems to support as well) the following codecs usually seem to come out in this order, from best to worst:

1. MPC
2. AAC
3. Vorbis
4. MP3

When RC3 hits, I suspect the gap between AAC and Vorbis will start to close.  Right now AAC mostly has a big edge on Vorbis because Vorbis' pre-echo is very weak, possibly worse than a well tuned MP3 encoder even.  MPC further edges out AAC in regards to issues like pre/post-echo and performance on difficult clips like impulses, etc.  From a quality standpoint, MP3 should really only be used if compatibility is a very large factor to take into consideration, such as hardware support.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #2 –
What I heard is that PsyTEL AAC (VBR) is better than Liquid Audio AAC with bitrates > 128kbps, I wonder whether this is true. By the way, is there any quality comparison results of full bitrate range (from very low bitrate to very high bitrate) of the audio formats?

Well, I feel MPC sounds lifeless comparing to PsyTEL AAC at high bitrates (Don't ask me for ABX tests, I never do) although MPC does handle very well on artifacts (I can't hear artifacts with -extreme) and has average lower bitrate than PsyTEL AAC (-archive) for every track encoded. I suggest to test the audio formats using really good speakers instead of earphones. Earphones can't show whether the music encoded is lifeless or not (unless you are going to blow your ear off with the earphone so close to your ears) although with earphones you are more likely to detect artifacts. And this is why I prefer PsyTEL AAC over MPC.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #3 –
Quote
Originally posted by VeryBlur
Well, I feel MPC sounds lifeless comparing to PsyTEL AAC at high bitrates (Don't ask me for ABX tests, I never do)

Ehh, ok. Now we have again a new very precise and pro definition, which really helps the developers...lifeless. Great, and no ABX or any proofs of course.

Please...

For newbies: Everytime you see someone say "I feel this sounds like that", the alarm bells should start ringing.
For testers these "feelings" are very familiar...
Juha Laaksonheimo

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #4 –
Just earlier today I was talking about these very types of issues..

It seems there are some common underlying themes to various claims that I keep seeing pop up that people are not willing to back up.  You see them most commonly in a very vague description of the sound.  Here are some usual examples:

1. <codec> lacks bass.
2. <codec> lacks highs.
3. <codec> sounds colder.
4. <codec> sounds warmer.
5. <codec> sounds dull.
6. <codec> sounds shrill.
7. <codec> has some weird distortion that I can't explain.

etc.

Now this one falls right in to that category -- <codec> sounds lifeless.

Honestly.. if people are so sure that they can hear something, enough to where they would avoid using it, then why wouldn't they be able to prove it?  Or why wouldn't they be willing to try?

At any rate, the type of descriptions I mentioned above, as JohnV says, are the usual signs that something is amiss.  Usually psychoacoustic audio compression does not behave in a manner similar to what you would expect from conventional audio and the differences you might hear between systems/media/etc.

In psychoacoustic audio, you don't really get "warm" or "cold".  You get "artifacted" or "not artifacted".  You for the most part shouldn't get things like a "lack of bass", though you might get distorted bass.  With the exception of lowpasses and highpasses used by various encoders, usually you aren't going to be actually missing something from the sound, you will more than likely have things "added to it", perceptually, in the form of artifacts.  You usually don't get subtle changes in tonality or the general "feel" of the audio, instead you get distortion of the details.  Pre-echo, Post-echo, dropouts, sometimes a distortion of the stereo field, etc.

Quote
I suggest to test the audio formats using really good speakers instead of earphones. Earphones can't show whether the music encoded is lifeless or not (unless you are going to blow your ear off with the earphone so close to your ears) although with earphones you are more likely to detect artifacts. And this is why I prefer PsyTEL AAC over MPC.


Testing audio codecs with speakers is fine, testing with speakers over headphones however makes little sense to me, unless you want to set yourself up to purposely not hear certain aspects of the sound.  It just sounds like a way to set things up to hear what you want to hear, and not hear what you don't want to hear.

However, I completely disagree with the whole "earphones can't show you whether the music encoded is lifeless or not" part.  First of all, define "lifeless"?  Since we are talking about audio quality, I'll assume that it is related to "not sounding good".  In that case, listening with headphones certainly can tell you whether or not something sounds lifeless.  To me lifeless is something that sounds artificial.  Something that I can actually quantify and relate to artifacting.  A good example of this would be WMA.  WMA has "lifeless" highs, they sound artificial and synthesized, mp3pro is the same way -- these are things that I can abx and these are both things I certainly can hear on headphones.

Anyway.. no offense to you or your opinion, but there have been so many people lately saying that MPC sounds bad or has some sort of mysterious flaw (and it's always a different story I might add) now that the format starting to gain in popularity more, yet not a single one has provided a shred of evidence of this yet, at all.  Period.  It's all hearsay and speculation, and now the trend actually seems to be that people want to make these statements but are unwilling to even attempt to back them up.  That means to me that they probably realize they are wrong, or they are so unsure of their statements that they don't want to lose face if they can't deliver the results.  Again.. if either of these things are the case, then why bother in the first place?

Just my 2 cents.. and btw, none of this is exclusive to MPC either, statements of these sort made about any codec should really be backed up with some sort of evidence.. that is at least if there is to be progress made.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #5 –
Dibrom,
What if the problem isn't with the encoder or decoder but the plugin? ABXing wavs would do nothing to expose a problem like this.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #6 –
Quote
Originally posted by layer3maniac
Dibrom,
What if the problem isn't with the encoder or decoder but the plugin? ABXing wavs would do nothing to expose a problem like this.


So decode the file to .wav via the plugin instead of the command line decoder.  Problem solved.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #7 –
Liquid Audio can't be decoded with the plugin.  Exactly how did ffc do that anyway? Burn it to a cd and then extract the wav? Hardly a fair method, wouldn't you say? Unless he did that to all the formats.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #8 –
Quote
Originally posted by layer3maniac
Liquid Audio can't be decoded with the plugin.  Exactly how did ffc do that anyway? Burn it to a cd and then extract the wav? Hardly a fair method, wouldn't you say? Unless he did that to all the formats.


He used total recorder which just intercepts the audio before it hits the wave device.  It provides a perfect digital copy of the audio being played back, in the same manner that something like the diskwriter in winamp would.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #9 –
For comparison tests, I use a winamp plugin, in_lqt.dll version 1.055, to decode Liquid Audio lqt files (as documented on my pages).  I believe this is the decoder usually used by the people in alt.binaries.sounds.aac.

The only codec I used Total Recorder on was WMA8 because there is no "write to disk" function available in WMP 7.1, and I wanted to quell any doubts about this or that decoder (i.e., in_wma.dll in Winamp 2.6) not being the "correct" one to use -- the Winamp and WMP wma decoders differ by a couple of bits.

I was also forced to burn the wma file to CD to encode, because that was the only way Windows Media Player 7.1 allowed me to make a wma file.  I could have used wm8eutil.exe, but again there are slight differences in the two encoders (both WMA8!) and I wanted to encode in the way that most other people probably do.

ff123

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #10 –
I'm not going to send any clips or anything of that nature, but I'm going to describe my experiences with mpp/mpc. I started using the format many years ago because I liked the fact that there were no pre/post echo problems. As far as I was concerned, and still am, there are no artifacting problems with the format which is quite an impressive thing.

One day I decided to compare a few formats by burning a cd with the original wav as well as the decompressed formats in a few musical genres. I was quite surprised to find what I thought might be tonality problems with mpc. At first I thought it was just a placebo effect, I had heard others complain of mpc sounding flat in the high end and thought I might have been predeposed to 'hear' flatness in the high end. That was utter crap as far as I was concerned. If anything I would have considered mpc to sound slightly brighter in the high end frequencies than the original.

I am not going to pull out samples for you to double blind test. I have a terribly slow dial-up connection, as well as no burning desire to do so.  However, the type of music I was listening to that seemed the most changed was r'n'b/pop vocal music and it sounded as though the timbre of the notes had been stripped from the original.  I never found this while listening through computer speakers or a good pair of head sets, but I thought it was prominent enough on a full stereo system to mention it.

Typically I encoded in x-treme

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #11 –
Cool  I just downloaded the 1.055 liquid audio plugin. Thanks for the info!

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #12 –
Quote
Originally posted by JohnV

Ehh, ok. Now we have again a new very precise and pro definition, which really helps the developers...lifeless. Great, and no ABX or any proofs of course.


JohnV, I know you are 1 of the expert listeners and well trained to detect artifacts. But I think you side too much on MPC and feel that other formats are just craps (psychological problem). When you tend to side something, you would say others are bad. Okay, I clarify that I am not trying to insult any people here.

Quote
Please...

For newbies: Everytime you see someone say "I feel this sounds like that", the alarm bells should start ringing.
For testers these "feelings" are very familiar...


In fact I am not a newbie. Very sorry to tell you so if you are trying to insult me as a newbie. I had tried many audio formats (MP3Pro, LAME MP3, Fhg MP3, RM8, WMA8, MPC, AAC, etc) by myself. I had visited other listening results web sites as well, e.g. ff123's (I would like to know about what other people think about the best 128kbps audio format).

Listening is very subjective and I am just voicing my opinion that MPC in my ears not as good as PsyTEL AAC in terms of life of the music. I do agree that MPC gives no artifacts (-xtreme for my ears, have not able to find any music to kill it yet. PsyTEL AAC -archive has no artifacts for me as well), handle perfect on transients, perfect psychoaccoustic model and it is great format (I do agree with this, in fact every invention of audio format is great) but it sounds lifeless compare at the almost the same bitrate (average 10-50kbps difference), MPC -xtreme vs PsyTEL AAC -archive (again to my ears and perhaps to NitTheBlak's too, for his case is MP3. This is very personal).

I never say everybody should use PsyTEL AAC like those people who are still going around to convince people to use their old format VQF. I just said that I feel PsyTEL AAC is good in terms of life of music. And then you people are trying to shoot me on this Eh I want opinions only, you so fast conclude I am a newbie??? It really sounds like brain washing. Even if the person is a newbie, you should not say they are all the same, in fact they may detect other things that you might not able to detect.

Just to point out that artifacts and life of music both are different, you could not say lifeless means there is artifact. To be said clearly, lifeless means you always feel that there is lack of something in the music perhaps the psychoaccoustic model removes too many details e.g. masked too much, etc (e.g. NitTheBlak said it's on the mid frequencies, for my case I use my feelings to feel it). Artifacts means you have extra something (ringing, flanging, etc) due to lossy compression comparing to the orginal. When you tend to pay more attention on detecting on whether there are artifacts, you would have less attention on whether the music is lack of something.

And yeah, by the way, is there any more version updates for PsyTEL AAC?

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #13 –
Quote
Originally posted by Dibrom
In psychoacoustic audio, you don't really get "warm" or "cold".  You get "artifacted" or "not artifacted".  You for the most part shouldn't get things like a "lack of bass", though you might get distorted bass.  With the exception of lowpasses and highpasses used by various encoders, usually you aren't going to be actually missing something from the sound, you will more than likely have things "added to it", perceptually, in the form of artifacts.  You usually don't get subtle changes in tonality or the general "feel" of the audio, instead you get distortion of the details.  Pre-echo, Post-echo, dropouts, sometimes a distortion of the stereo field, etc.


Yes, artifacts is like there something added on the music due to the lack of bitrates to represent the waves. I do agree with you on this. I had mentioned in previous post as well.

Quote
Testing audio codecs with speakers is fine, testing with speakers over headphones however makes little sense to me, unless you want to set yourself up to purposely not hear certain aspects of the sound.  It just sounds like a way to set things up to hear what you want to hear, and not hear what you don't want to hear.


Good speakers would let you hear not only the increased of loudness, you could even get real ambience as well, and you wouldn't miss a single tone also as you'd mentioned. If headphones are really that good, then why you still go for live concerts? And with the real ambience, loudness, etc (I am lousy on describing and my English is not that good) there you could really feel the life of the music (YES, LIFE OF MUSIC!!!), unless you haven't been to live concerts before. Try to compare the audio formats with a pair of decent stereo speakers, at least not earphones. I do agree that headphones are pretty good to detect artifacts.

Quote
However, I completely disagree with the whole "earphones can't show you whether the music encoded is lifeless or not" part.  First of all, define "lifeless"?  Since we are talking about audio quality, I'll assume that it is related to "not sounding good".  In that case, listening with headphones certainly can tell you whether or not something sounds lifeless.  To me lifeless is something that sounds artificial.  Something that I can actually quantify and relate to artifacting.  A good example of this would be WMA.  WMA has "lifeless" highs, they sound artificial and synthesized, mp3pro is the same way -- these are things that I can abx and these are both things I certainly can hear on headphones.


Okay, I think we have a misunderstanding here. Your definition of "lifeless" and mine is different. Mine is explained previously.

I do agree that WMA sounds real metallic (artificial and synthesized as you mentioned) and I wonder M$ consider 64kbps WMA 8 is CD quality (craps). I feel that MP3Pro is better than WMA 8 for 64kbps.

Quote
Anyway.. no offense to you or your opinion, but there have been so many people lately saying that MPC sounds bad or has some sort of mysterious flaw (and it's always a different story I might add) now that the format starting to gain in popularity more, yet not a single one has provided a shred of evidence of this yet, at all.  Period.  It's all hearsay and speculation, and now the trend actually seems to be that people want to make these statements but are unwilling to even attempt to back them up.  That means to me that they probably realize they are wrong, or they are so unsure of their statements that they don't want to lose face if they can't deliver the results.  Again.. if either of these things are the case, then why bother in the first place?


I am not here to say MPC is not good. In fact every audio format is great (they all try to achieve a good size/quality ratio for digital audio). I think I might has chosen to wrong timing as well, as other people are trying to bash MPC.

Quote
Just my 2 cents.. and btw, none of this is exclusive to MPC either, statements of these sort made about any codec should really be backed up with some sort of evidence.. that is at least if there is to be progress made.


Evidence is yourself. You are the listener who decides what sounds better to your ears.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #14 –
Quote
Originally posted by VeryBlur
JohnV, I know you are 1 of the expert listeners and well trained to detect artifacts. But I think you side too much on MPC and feel that other formats are just craps (psychological problem). When you tend to side something, you would say others are bad. Okay, I clarify that I am not trying to insult any people here.


Whoa... hold on there.  You have some HUGE misconceptions man.  I don't think I've ever seen JohnV say AAC or PsyTEL was crap, quite the contrary I'm almost positive he recognizes PsyTEL (as I do) as a very high quality encoder.  For that matter he also liked Garf's tuned Vorbis encoder quite a bit.  So please, try to get your story right here.  JohnV's interest in MPC isn't psychological, its because MPC performs extremely well.  JohnV actually has participated in helping tune PsyTEL (and many other codecs) to my knowledge, so before you go off saying that you think he is biased and has some psychological problems, you really need to check your facts.  You are so far off it isn't even funny.

Quote
Listening is very subjective and I am just voicing my opinion that MPC in my ears not as good as PsyTEL AAC in terms of life of the music.


First of all, I don't buy this.  Sure, audio quality is subjective, but psychoacoustic audio quality isn't nearly as subjective as some people would like to think.  When I see arguments like "I prefer MP3 artifacts over MPC artifacts" then I have to ask... where are these MPC artifacts?  Show me.  Provide a clip for me, and prove that you can hear a difference.  You don't like calling that difference an "artifact"?  Fine, but you still claim you hear a problem.. so prove it.

Quote
I do agree that MPC gives no artifacts (-xtreme for my ears, have not able to find any music to kill it yet. PsyTEL AAC -archive has no artifacts for me as well), handle perfect on transients, perfect psychoaccoustic model and it is great format (I do agree with this, in fact every invention of audio format is great) but it sounds lifeless compare at the almost the same bitrate (average 10-50kbps difference), MPC -xtreme vs PsyTEL AAC -archive (again to my ears and perhaps to NitTheBlak's too, for his case is MP3. This is very personal).


Fine.. say I was to give you the benefit of the doubt -- to you it sounds lifeless.  So you should have no problem hearing this "lifeless" quality in a blind listening test right?  Because if you can't even on a clip of your own choosing, then you aren't hearing a difference.

Quote
I never say everybody should use PsyTEL AAC like those people who are still going around to convince people to use their old format VQF. I just said that I feel PsyTEL AAC is good in terms of life of music.


And we never said that PsyTEL was bad.  I'll be the first to admit, it's an awesome encoder.  If there was no MPC, I'd use PsyTEL for my highest quality encodings.

Quote
And then you people are trying to shoot me on this Eh I want opinions only, you so fast conclude I am a newbie??? It really sounds like brain washing. Even if the person is a newbie, you should not say they are all the same, in fact they may detect other things that you might not able to detect.


Another misconception.  We are not trying to shoot you down on your statement that PsyTEL sounds good.  I agree 100% with you there.  What I don't agree with is your statement that MPC is lifeless.  I'm inclined to believe people's claims normally, but when someone is so unwilling to provide a test clip or any listening test results, that means to me that what they say should be considered highly suspect.

You say that some people are able to detect things that others are not.  I agree with you 100% there also.  No doubt about that at all.  And again, that brings me back to my point, if you can detect this issue that you claim you can, then why are you unwilling to perform a blind listening test?

Quote
Just to point out that artifacts and life of music both are different, you could not say lifeless means there is artifact. To be said clearly, lifeless means you always feel that there is lack of something in the music perhaps the psychoaccoustic model removes too many details e.g. masked too much, etc (e.g. NitTheBlak said it's on the mid frequencies, for my case I use my feelings to feel it).


You use your "feelings" to feel it?  That sounds to me like you are convincing yourself you are hearing something that you are not.  Somewhat ironic given the fact that you would portray JohnV who is absolutely willing to always back up his statements with hard data, as the one who is affected by a psychological issue in relation to perception.

Quote
Artifacts means you have extra something (ringing, flanging, etc) due to lossy compression comparing to the orginal. When you tend to pay more attention on detecting on whether there are artifacts, you would have less attention on whether the music is lack of something.


Not true.  Due to the nature of psychoacoustic audio compression, when you are listening for artifacts, you are listening for any difference, whatever that may happen to be.  You don't separate these two issues out as you would seem to imply.

So in closing, sure it's possible you are hearing something.  Anything is possible.  Certainly if there is a problem it should be uncovered and publicized so that it can be addressed.  However, when you refuse to participate in a listening test, provide any data, and instead just make wild claims, describing this "problem" so vaguely, it means absolutely nothing.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #15 –
Quote
Originally posted by MiXP
If anything I would have considered mpc to sound slightly brighter in the high end frequencies than the original.


I found out that PsyTEL AAC has this problem too, for modes below -extreme (or -normal?). For test clips, please use real music (some minutes long), it is not difficult to find out the problem.

Quote
Typically I encoded in x-treme


Same here, I usually encode MPC using -xtreme.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #16 –
Quote
Originally posted by VeryBlur
Good speakers would let you hear not only the increased of loudness, you could even get real ambience as well, and you wouldn't miss a single tone also as you'd mentioned.


First of all, you don't need sheer volume to hear differences in audio codecs.  In fact, the masking effect is increased at higher volumes, so unless you are listening to an extremely quiet sample, it's even less likely you'd hear a difference at higher volumes.  So then you have 2 things, you aren't going to hear the differences in detail as well on speakers, and if you are using speakers to get increased volume, you aren't going to hear further subtle differences which would normally be audible at lower volumes.

Quote
If headphones are really that good, then why you still go for live concerts?


I go to concerts to see bands perform.  Most of the time the sound quality of their performances suck compared to some well produced studio content played back on a decent system.

I don't go to concerts because of the audio quality, I go to concerts for the experience of being there, in that it is a social experience.. the two are totally unrelated and have nothing to do with the "feeling" of the sound.

Quote
And with the real ambience, loudness, etc (I am lousy on describing and my English is not that good) there you could really feel the life of the music (YES, LIFE OF MUSIC!!!), unless you haven't been to live concerts before. Try to compare the audio formats with a pair of decent stereo speakers, at least not earphones. I do agree that headphones are pretty good to detect artifacts.


Anything which you say you can hear or "feel" you should be able to do so reliably, so there should be no problem for you to detect this "life of the music" in a blind listening test.  If you are so sure you can hear all of this, then why are we arguing?  Why the refusal to abx?

Quote
I am not here to say MPC is not good. In fact every audio format is great (they all try to achieve a good size/quality ratio for digital audio).


I personally don't feel they are all great, though the idea behind psychoacoustics and the fact that it works is pretty amazing I'll admit.

Quote
Evidence is yourself. You are the listener who decides what sounds better to your ears.


Exactly, but this is not a reason not to perform blind listening tests.  Because you should be able to hear the difference reliably yourself at the very least.

If you want to "define" your own truth to yourself and convince yourself that everyone else is wrong (ignoring the fact that you may not even be able to reliably tell a difference yourself because you have not tested), that's fine.  Everyone is entitled to do that, but it doesn't help anyone in a community working towards achieving higher quality audio compression.. if anything it only spreads misinformation and confusion.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #17 –
Quote
Originally posted by VeryBlur
I found out that PsyTEL AAC has this problem too, for modes below -extreme (or -normal?). For test clips, please use real music (some minutes long), it is not difficult to find out the problem.


Since it is not difficult for you to find a piece of music which causes this problem apparently (now it sounds as in both PsyTEL and MPC) then please copy the relevant portions of a track, encode with LPAC, and upload it somewhere so we can all hear these alleged problems.

If you refuse to do that, then tell us the exact track on the exact album along with some timecodes so that someone who has this music can help us out instead.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #18 –
Quote
Originally posted by Dibrom
Whoa... hold on there.  You have some HUGE misconceptions man.  I don't think I've ever seen JohnV say AAC or PsyTEL was crap, quite the contrary I'm almost positive he recognizes PsyTEL (as I do) as a very high quality encoder.  For that matter he also liked Garf's tuned Vorbis encoder quite a bit.  So please, try to get your story right here.  JohnV's interest in MPC isn't psychological, its because MPC performs extremely well.  JohnV actually has participated in helping tune PsyTEL (and many other codecs) to my knowledge, so before you go off saying that you think he is biased and has some psychological problems, you really need to check your facts.  You are so far off it isn't even funny.


Thanks for the information. I would like to apologize for my misconceptions.

Quote
First of all, I don't buy this.  Sure, audio quality is subjective, but psychoacoustic audio quality isn't nearly as subjective as some people would like to think.  When I see arguments like "I prefer MP3 artifacts over MPC artifacts" then I have to ask... where are these MPC artifacts?  Show me.  Provide a clip for me, and prove that you can hear a difference.  You don't like calling that difference an "artifact"?  Fine, but you still claim you hear a problem.. so prove it.


By the way, I did not say "I prefer MP3 artifacts over MPC artifacts". Don't generalize me with others, please. I do agree that I can't find any artifacts for MPC yet (Why yet? God knows 1 day some people could manage to find other killer music).

Quote
Fine.. say I was to give you the benefit of the doubt -- to you it sounds lifeless.  So you should have no problem hearing this "lifeless" quality in a blind listening test right?  Because if you can't even on a clip of your own choosing, then you aren't hearing a difference.


Okay, I forget to mention that my listening tests that I did by myself is like using shuffle mode in Winamp and play all the encoded audio formats with the original in the same playlist without me looking on which format it is playing. I wonder whether you could call this as blind listening test.

Quote
And we never said that PsyTEL was bad.  I'll be the first to admit, it's an awesome encoder.  If there was no MPC, I'd use PsyTEL for my highest quality encodings.


I never say you guys said PsyTEL is bad. Maybe you have misread my words.

Quote
Another misconception.  We are not trying to shoot you down on your statement that PsyTEL sounds good.  I agree 100% with you there.  What I don't agree with is your statement that MPC is lifeless.  I'm inclined to believe people's claims normally, but when someone is so unwilling to provide a test clip or any listening test results, that means to me that what they say should be considered highly suspect.


The definition of "lifeless" of yours and mine are different. I think we have misunderstanding here. My test clips are just real musics. When you blast real musics on your decent stereo speakers, you would notice them. I do agree that the test samples for tuning psychoaccoustic models are real musics too but the thing is real music last for minutes and samples last for seconds. The length could tell a difference because our brain limitation.

Quote
You use your "feelings" to feel it?  That sounds to me like you are convincing yourself you are hearing something that you are not.  Somewhat ironic given the fact that you would portray JohnV who is absolutely willing to always back up his statements with hard data, as the one who is affected by a psychological issue in relation to perception.


Feeling to feel it does not mean I am trying to convince myself. I think you have misconceptions about this. Do you try to convince yourself if you feel that you like a girl??? No right?

Quote
Not true.  Due to the nature of psychoacoustic audio compression, when you are listening for artifacts, you are listening for any difference, whatever that may happen to be.  You don't separate these two issues out as you would seem to imply.


The "adding" means those things that the original wave doesn't have e.g. ringing, flanging, etc (artifacts).

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So in closing, sure it's possible you are hearing something.  Anything is possible.  Certainly if there is a problem it should be uncovered and publicized so that it can be addressed.  However, when you refuse to participate in a listening test, provide any data, and instead just make wild claims, describing this "problem" so vaguely, it means absolutely nothing.


To clarify, I am not making wild claims. Maybe we have lots of communication barriers for this (my English is not good).

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #19 –
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Originally posted by Dibrom
First of all, you don't need sheer volume to hear differences in audio codecs.  In fact, the masking effect is increased at higher volumes, so unless you are listening to an extremely quiet sample, it's even less likely you'd hear a difference at higher volumes.  So then you have 2 things, you aren't going to hear the differences in detail as well on speakers, and if you are using speakers to get increased volume, you aren't going to hear further subtle differences which would normally be audible at lower volumes.


Not true. The audio reproduction of speakers and earphones are different. This is another factor of audio quality that we shouldn't miss out (other factors are like DAC converter of sound card, etc).

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I go to concerts to see bands perform.  Most of the time the sound quality of their performances suck compared to some well produced studio content played back on a decent system.

I don't go to concerts because of the audio quality, I go to concerts for the experience of being there, in that it is a social experience.. the two are totally unrelated and have nothing to do with the "feeling" of the sound.


It does have, argh. Anyway, I do not know how to describe to you (my limitation of using English to describe). I am not trying to convince you to follow me. I just want to hold my stand.

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Anything which you say you can hear or "feel" you should be able to do so reliably, so there should be no problem for you to detect this "life of the music" in a blind listening test.  If you are so sure you can hear all of this, then why are we arguing?  Why the refusal to abx?


I had said how I do my listening tests in the previous posts.

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I personally don't feel they are all great, though the idea behind psychoacoustics and the fact that it works is pretty amazing I'll admit.


Well, I agree that lossless compression at anytime is better than lossy compression because you would not get any bits lost during the encoding process. You would not need to bother the flaws of the psychoaccoustic model as well.

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Exactly, but this is not a reason not to perform blind listening tests.  Because you should be able to hear the difference reliably yourself at the very least.

If you want to "define" your own truth to yourself and convince yourself that everyone else is wrong (ignoring the fact that you may not even be able to reliably tell a difference yourself because you have not tested), that's fine.  Everyone is entitled to do that, but it doesn't help anyone in a community working towards achieving higher quality audio compression.. if anything it only spreads misinformation and confusion.


I am not here to define my own truth and I am not to convince myself that everyone is wrong. I am here to discuss, to exchange and share knowledges. To clarify, I am not here to spread misinformation and confusion as well.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #20 –
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Originally posted by Dibrom


Since it is not difficult for you to find a piece of music which causes this problem apparently (now it sounds as in both PsyTEL and MPC) then please copy the relevant portions of a track, encode with LPAC, and upload it somewhere so we can all hear these alleged problems.

If you refuse to do that, then tell us the exact track on the exact album along with some timecodes so that someone who has this music can help us out instead.


The problem is that not everyone in the world is with a broadband connection.

For the musics, I listen to Chinese musics.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #21 –
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Originally posted by VeryBlur
By the way, I did not say "I prefer MP3 artifacts over MPC artifacts". Don't generalize me with others, please. I do agree that I can't find any artifacts for MPC yet (Why yet? God knows 1 day some people could manage to find other killer music).


The comment was made to illustrate my point that some people make up excuses why they prefer one format over another, aside from all logic or established data that exists.

You say that you prefer PsyTEL because MPC sounds lifeless.  Show me a sample where it sounds lifeless, give me some evidence.

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Okay, I forget to mention that my listening tests that I did by myself is like using shuffle mode in Winamp and play all the encoded audio formats with the original in the same playlist without me looking on which format it is playing. I wonder whether you could call this as blind listening test.


First of all that is not blind testing, and second it is rather convenient to say after the fact.  It is very possible that you have done some sort of conclusive testing, however until you share your results in the form of a test clip or some provide some sort of reproducible evidence, or even a desire to do so, then your claims hold no water.

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I never say you guys said PsyTEL is bad. Maybe you have misread my words.


I didn't misread your words, though it appears you have missed the point that I was trying to make.  You came across as if you thought we were attacking you for stating that you preferred PsyTEL.  I explained that this was not the case, and instead our responses were related to your unsubstantiated claim that "MPC sounds lifeless".

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The definition of "lifeless" of yours and mine are different. I think we have misunderstanding here.


There is no misunderstanding.  The problem is that what you call "lifeless" you cannot (apparently) quantify, nor are you willing to provide a single bit of evidence that shows this behavior.

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My test clips are just real musics.


So are all of mine.  And for that matter castanets, fatboy, spahm, all the killer clips are "real music".  They may not be indicative of the majority of music, but rest assured that they are from real music.

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When you blast real musics on your decent stereo speakers, you would notice them.


Again I ask, what music?  What track off of what album, and at what time?

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I do agree that the test samples for tuning psychoaccoustic models are real musics too but the thing is real music last for minutes and samples last for seconds. The length could tell a difference because our brain limitation.


Would it be better then if I provided a sample harder to encode than fatboy, but that lasted nearly 10 minutes?

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Feeling to feel it does not mean I am trying to convince myself.


If you only say you can "feel" something, but you can not quantify it, and you cannot reliably prove that you can detect it, then it cannot be considered that you are actually perceiving any difference.  That's just the way things work from an objective approach.

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I think you have misconceptions about this. Do you try to convince yourself if you feel that you like a girl??? No right?


First of all, the whole point of public listening tests is to gather objective data.  Something such as emotions are not objective at all.  Furthermore, they are completely unrelated to the discussion at hand.

You can argue that you prefer the sound of PsyTEL because of its possible quirks and modifications it makes to the sound, but you run into problems when you try to imply that that somehow relates to encoding accuracy.  It does not.

You can say you prefer the sound of vinyl for example, but that does NOT mean that CD Audio is not accurate, it simply means you prefer the distortion that vinyl is subject to.

However..  I'd still like you to prove that you can actually hear the difference enough to reliably pick one as "feeling" better to you than the other.  As it is, right now I do not believe you because you have not given any sort of data to validate this claim and it just looks like you are making excuses on why you shouldn't need to. 

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To clarify, I am not making wild claims. Maybe we have lots of communication barriers for this (my English is not good).


They are wild claims until they have been somewhat substantiated.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #22 –
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Originally posted by VeryBlur
The problem is that not everyone in the world is with a broadband connection.


Did you miss this:

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If you refuse to do that, then tell us the exact track on the exact album along with some timecodes so that someone who has this music can help us out instead.


So give us some details already.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #23 –
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Originally posted by VeryBlur
Not true.


Not true?  Would you like me to provide you with clips that exemplify the fact that the masking effect is greater at loud volumes?  I'd be more than happy to.

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It does have, argh. Anyway, I do not know how to describe to you (my limitation of using English to describe). I am not trying to convince you to follow me. I just want to hold my stand.


If you can't describe it, you can't quantify it, and you can't prove it... has it ever crossed your mind that it doesn't exist?  Heh..

From an objective point of view, one simply cannot just "take things for granted" like that.

Anyway, I stick with my comments that concerts and psychoacoustic audio compression are two entirely different things.  Taking the discussion off track doesn't change anything.

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I had said how I do my listening tests in the previous posts.


And they are not blind, objective, or reproducible by anyone else so far.

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I am not here to define my own truth and I am not to convince myself that everyone is wrong. I am here to discuss, to exchange and share knowledges.


Ok, then I'll ask again.  Where is a clip that when encoded shows the behavior you described?  If you cannot upload a clip then give use exact details on where we can find this clip on a real album elsewhere.

If you are here to share and discuss as you imply, then why not share and discuss this with us?

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To clarify, I am not here to spread misinformation and confusion as well.


Refer to the previous statement.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #24 –
Just thought you'd like to hear my ABX results so far.
I started with a file I encoded with Liquifier Pro 5 at 128 & 192. I decoded them with Liquidy Split 1.06b. It was easy to tell them apart from the original wav, 11 for 11. Then I encoded the same file with mpc at radio which averaged at 145 and extreme which averaged 185, honestly I couldn't tell either of them from the original. The mpc even at 145 was FAR superior to the lqt at 192. I'm going to do some more testing with other encoders, I'm encoding the same file with PsyTel 1.2 right now, but I have to say that I found mpc even with just the radio preset to be VERY impressive.